


Seeing Reason

by DjangoDurango



Category: PAYDAY (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:57:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjangoDurango/pseuds/DjangoDurango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Good judgement wasn't marked by choices of a logical nature. It was marked by choices that were right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing Reason

"If we're gonna do it, it has to be soon. They're going to move him when the doctors say he's fit for it." Dallas leaned over the blueprints for the hospital Hoxton had been taken to. It had taken him a lot of work to find out which one it was, lots of incognito visits and joint casings. His arm still being in a sling had, ironically, provided good cover.

It wasn't going to be a tight plan, but if they could rescue Hoxton from the hospital itself or even in transit to the prison... They'd pulled similar jobs before. They could do it again.

"Dallas, this is a bad idea," Bain's voice said.

"I know," Dallas replied. "Can you get me any information? Transfer schedules, his condition, anything?" They'd be going in uncomfortably uninformed as it was. Bain, who was ordinarily a black market Wikipedia, had been coming up annoyingly impotent in getting them anything to help them plan a rescue.

There was a long pause.

"Their records say he's still unconscious," Bain finally said.

"That'll make things harder," Dallas said, more to himself than Bain.

"Dallas, you cannot do this," Bain said. "It's an impossible job."

"We have t-" Dallas started to say again, but Bain cut him off.

"There is no way you would escape with him. There's only three of you and Chains still can't walk. If Hoxton can't walk by himself, one of you will have to wheel him out if you try the hospital. Or actually carry him if you try for the transit. And you and Wolf are both still healing up too. Add our lack of intel and how much security they're going to have already posted? This is a suicide mission."

Dallas let out a slow breath, knowing he couldn't really argue. Bain was right. Moreover, the similarity of Bain's reasoning to that which he had given Wolf was not lost on him. He wanted to just decide that despite all of Bain's obvious rightness, he could still enact this plan and it would go off marvelously by sheer force of want and will. But he knew that was bullshit and he'd be putting all of them in danger for a very unlikely gain.

"This is just the way things have to play out," Bain concluded.

"I know." Dallas had reviewed the situation in his head a million times over, trying to determine if there was any way he could have done better. Though he would probably never be entirely secure in his decision, he had yet to find a better answer. So instead he had turned his attention to what could be done about it now. 

"I don't want him to think we didn't try," he said. "We have to do _something_."

"You could stay out of prison yourselves instead of going in with him," Bain said gently.

"Something he would actually appreciate," Dallas snapped, rolling his eyes at Bain's sappy crap.

\---

"Wait, wait, wait," Bain said. "He had the assistant hold a scalpel to your throat?"

"Yeeessss, Bain, and I am very angry about that," Dallas ground out, annoyed at Bain's continual distraction from the topic. "But the point is, he can help us get Hoxton out of prison."

"I don't like this. He should have just contacted me. He has a crime.net account, I'm looking at it right now."

"Well, he didn't. Doesn't make his jobs any less lucrative."

"He's up to something," Bain pointed out. "He traps you in his office and he just happens to know exactly what to offer to get you to do his jobs? It's got bad vibes all over it."

"I don't care. We're doing them. We didn't have the resources to rescue Hoxton before, but he _does_. And all he wants in return is for us to do some jobs," Dallas said. " _Good_ jobs," he added pointedly. "The kind of jobs we did before."

"We have plenty of jobs already lined up. Our schedule is full."

"I'm sure we can move a drug run or a mall shakedown here or there to make room on the calendar," Dallas said derisively.

"You are usually smarter than this," Bain said. Dallas knew he was trying to strike a nerve, but he would not be swayed.

"I know it's a big risk, but Hoxton would have taken the chance for any of us. Declining the contract is simply not an option. We owe it to him."

"I am not going to arrange these jobs," Bain said, his tone final. "It puts everything we're working toward at risk."

There was a very long pause. It couldn't be called a staredown, per se, since Bain didn't have a face to stare at. The tension of it was the same though. Dallas knew Bain had some larger, grander scheme at work, but as far as he was concerned, it couldn't possibly be more important than the opportunity they had in front of them now. And just as Bain thought he was throwing everything away for a flight of fancy, Dallas thought exactly the same of him.

The difference was Dallas had all the leverage.

"Don't make me choose between you and this contract, Bain," Dallas warned him evenly. "If you force a divide on this, you will be a out of a crew entirely. You won't win if it comes down to loyalties. Wolf will do anything to rescue Hoxton. Chains'll go where the money and action is. And to Hoxton?" he said, referring to the new one, "You're just the voice on the radio who suggests we knock over convenience stores. And he's better than that." He couldn't see Bain, but Dallas felt confident Bain could see he wasn't fucking around. "Don't think for a second that you're the boss of this crew. I can broker this contract myself if you won't."

There was no response from Bain. Dallas took it as a sign of capitulation.

"I would rather work with you watching out for us than not," he said with less steel. He _could_ deal with the Dentist himself if he needed to, but doing so would leave them open to far more risk. Bain wasn't only an omnipresent pair of eyes watching their backs when they were on jobs. He also insulated them from the kinds of hazards that direct contact with the clients posed. "We would be safer with you overseeing these jobs."

The silence hung in the air for a moment.

"All right," Bain said finally.

Dallas smiled genuinely.

"Thank you."


End file.
